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I grew up
in Denver and am admittedly biased. I’m a Denver Broncos fanatic. In
the Mile High City, the Broncos are more than just a football team;
they’re an institution.

Everybody
loves a comeback. Former Broncos quarterback John Elway — one of the
greatest QBs in NFL history — had comebacks in his DNA. Since he
retired in 1999 after back-to-back Super Bowl wins, Denver fans have
been jonesing for that regular shot of adrenaline Elway provided
week in, week out.

Enter Tim
Tebow. In the category of, “Holy cow, can he actually do it?” no
Broncos QB since Elway has delivered like Tebow has. He feels
familiar. This is what Broncos fans expect. We don’t do steady. We
prefer up and down, high and low until that improbable rocket launch
to victory in the final seconds of the game.

Will Tebow
end up an NFL great like John Elway? That remains to be seen.
Opinions are all over the place. But what is certain is that Tim
Tebow is more than just a sports phenomenon. He’s a cultural
phenomenon.

For
starters, Tebow’s very existence is somehow controversial. He’s a
walking pro-life testimonial. He’s been pulling off comebacks since
before he was born. Pam Tebow, Tim’s mother, courageously chose to
carry baby Tim to term despite doctors’ recommendations that she
abort him.

You may
recall that before Tim went pro, the Christian group, Focus on the
Family, commissioned an innocuous TV ad that ran during the 2010
Saints-Colts Super Bowl game. It briefly told the story of the
Tebows’ pre-natal struggle. The word “abortion” was never even
uttered, but a positive portrayal of childbearing was all it took.

And so
began the left’s hate affair with Tim Tebow. Radical feminist
groups, media-types and liberal pundits alike lost their collective
noodle even before the ad ran.

Erin
Mattson, vice president of The National Organization for Women
(NOW), told ABC News that Tim’s story of survival was “really quite
offensive. … This ad is hate masquerading as love!” she barked. Tim
wasn’t dismembered alive and scraped in pieces from his mother’s
womb, you see.

The New
York-based Women’s Media Center launched a failed censorship
petition drive to pull the ad, framing it as an “attack on choice.”
Get it? Pam Tebow chose alright; she just happened to make the wrong
“choice,” and dared to share about it publicly.

But as a
Denver Bronco, Tim Tebow’s profile has grown exponentially. So too
has the left’s hatred for him.

This is due
in large part to his very open Christian faith. After each game, Tim
begins by thanking God: “First and foremost, I’d like to thank my
Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.”

And who
hasn’t heard of “Tebowing,” wherein one drops to a knee in prayer?

Then
there’s Tim’s favorite Bible verse, John 3:16, which he’s known to
wear painted in black swaths under each eye. After the Broncos’
recent electrifying playoff win against the Pittsburgh Steelers in
overtime, John 3:16 was reportedly the most popular search term on
the Internet.

Remarkably,
during the game Tebow passed for precisely 316 yards and averaged
31.6 yards per completed pass. The television viewing audience for
the last 15 minutes of the game was 31.6 percent. This only added to
the mystique.

So big was
the story, in fact, that major news outlets like CNN ran the text of
John 3:16 in its entirety: “For God so loved the world that he gave
his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish
but have eternal life.”

The
attention that Tebow’s bold Christian faith has drawn to the Gospel
message has secular “progressives” and other God-deniers tied in
knots.

American
Atheists, a New Jersey-based group that promotes religious cleansing
from the public sphere, says that Tebow is “full of cr*p.”

“Tebow
takes religion and injects it into the mix and divides the fan
base,” complained David Silverman, the group’s president.

“[Religion]
injects the divisive force into football,” he continued (because,
absent religion, football is just a touchy-feely snuggle fest). “Why
in the world are we talking about religion when we are talking about
football?” he demanded.

Of course,
Tim Tebow is merely doing what Jesus asks of his followers: “Whoever
acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my
Father in heaven.” (Matthew 10:32)

The problem
is that secular “progressives” don’t want Christ acknowledged before
anyone, period; and they endeavor to shut down or mock anybody who
tries.

During the
Broncos’ regular season loss to the Buffalo Bills, for instance,
“progressive” troglodyte and pseudo-intellectual funnyman Bill Maher
tweeted about the game, encapsulating the left’s visceral hatred for
Tim Tebow in 140 characters or less: “Wow, Jesus just [expletive
deleted] #TimTebow bad! And on Xmas Eve! Somewhere in hell Satan is
tebowing, saying to Hitler ‘Hey, Buffalo’s killing them.’”

Jesus
addressed the Bill Mahers of the world — past, present and future —
on more than one occasion. In John 15:18-20, for instance, He
reminds His followers: “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it
hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as
its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen
you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.”

Those who
belong to the world do indeed hate Tim Tebow. He stands for much of
what our postmodern popular culture despises: sexual purity within
the bonds of natural marriage, the sanctity of human life,
selflessness, personal charity, humility and much, much more.

I mean, Tim
Tebow has never even been arrested for drug possession or sexual
assault, for crying out loud. We simply can’t allow children this
kind of role model.

So, does
God care about who wins NFL football games? Probably not. Does he
care about those who play, watch and love football? Unquestionably.

Win or
lose, no matter what happens with the rest of the Denver Broncos
football season, one thing is for sure: people will keep talking
about Tim Tebow. And when people are talking about Tim Tebow, they
can’t help but talk about the profound faith that drives him both on
and off the field.

In the
meantime: Go Broncos!

Matt Barber(@jmattbarber on Twitter)
is an attorney concentrating in constitutional law. He serves as
Vice President of Liberty Counsel
Action. (This
information is provided for identification purposes only.)